188 BARTON— THE HISTORICAL VALUE [April 17, 



stories, which were originally told of others. This could, if it were 

 necessary, be illustrated by many examples, but it is unnecessary to 

 occupy space to prove that which is familiar to every investigator 

 of history or legend. 



In applying the principle of interpretation drawn from Genesis, 

 ch. 10, it is convenient to begin with the narratives connected with 

 the twelve sons of Jacob. These correspond to the twelve tribes of 

 Israel, and are probably simply personifications of those tribes. 

 These sons are divided by the narratives into four groups, which are 

 said to be respectively the offspring of iouv mothers. It is natural 

 to suppose that, if these narratives represent tribal history, that 

 there was an alliance between the tribes which composed each group 

 before the groups themselves were formed into a union. Two of 

 the groups are said to be the offspring of full wives of Jacob. These 

 probably joined in an alliance with each other earlier than the two 

 groups which are said to be descended from Jacob's concubines. 

 In Jacob's marriages, then, and the stories of the birth of his chil- 

 dren we probably have an outline of the history of the formation of 

 the confederacy of the twelve Israelitish tribes. The nucleus of 

 this confederacy was the tribes which counted their descent from 

 Leah, viz : Reuben, Simeon. Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon. These 

 were the original tribes of Israel. Later were born the sons of 

 Rachel ; i. e., the Rachel tribes came into the confederacy after the 

 other six existed as a definite group. The name Leah means wild- 

 cow ; the name Rachel, ewe.^ It has accordingly been suggested 

 that these were simply the animal symbols of the tribes, and that the 

 Leah tribes were cow boys and the Rachel tribes sheep raisers. 

 Others hold that they were not economic, but totemistic, symbols. 

 Whichever alternative is adopted, the interpretation of Leah and 

 Rachel which makes them the symbols of the intertribal alliances 

 is most probable. The application of the name Joseph to two of 

 these tribes, for reasons which will be mentioned later, was prob- 

 ably not made until after the settlement in Palestine. Again the 

 tribe of Benjamin was not differentiated from the other Rachel 

 tribes until after the settlement in Canaan. Benjamin originallv 



^ Delitzsch, " Prolegomena," 80. W. R. Smith, " Kinship," 2d ed., 254. 



